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There is one last question I must deal with in this chapter. Why should human beings be moral Another way of putting the problem is as follows. Is there any clear foundation or basis for morality Can any reasons be found for human beings to be good and do right acts rather than he bad and do wrong actsI have already pointed out the difficulties involved in founding morality on religion, and especially on religion as a safe factor. (1) However, if a person has religious faith, then he or she does have a foundation for a personal morality, even though this foundation is basically psychological rather than logical in nature. What disturbs me about the use of religion as the foundation of morality is the frequently-made assumption that if there is no supernatural or religious basis for morality, then there can be no basis at all. A related, and perhaps deeper, statement is that there can be no real meaning to human life. unless there is some sort of afterlife or some other extra-natural reason for living. (2) It is obvious that for many individuals this is psychologically true. that is, they feel that their existence has meaning and purpose and that they have a reason for being moral if and only if there is a God, an afterlife, or some sort of religion in their lives. I feel that we must respect this point of view and accept the conviction of the many people who hold it, because that is how they feel about life and morality.It is also obvious, however, that many people do not feel this way. (3) I think it is terribly presumptuous of religious believers to feel that if some people do not have a religious commitment, their lives are meaningless, or that such people have no reason for being moral in their actions. But if religion does not necessarily provide a "why" for morality, then what does Let us assume for a moment that there is no supernatural morality and see if we can find any other reasons why people should be moral.Enlightened Self-InterestOne can certainly argue on a basis of enlightened self-interest, that it is, at the very least, generally better to be good rather than bad and to create a world and society that is good rather than one that is bad. As a matter of fact, self-interest is the sole basis of one ethical theory, ethical egoism. I am not, however, suggesting at this point that one ought to pursue one’s own self-interest. I am merely presenting the argument that if everyone tried to do and be good and to avoid and prevent bad, it would be in everyone’s self-interest. For example, if within a group of people no one killed, stole, lied, or cheated, then each member of the group would benefit. (4) An individual member of the group could say, "It’s in my self-interest to do good rather than bad because I stand to benefit if I do and also because I could be ostracized or punished if I don’t. " Therefore, even though it is not airtight, the argument from enlightened self-interest is a somewhat compelling one.Argument from Tradition and LawRelated to the foregoing argument is the argument from tradition and law. This argument suggests that because traditions and laws, established over a long period of time, govern the behavior of human beings and because these traditions and laws urge human beings to be moral rather than immoral, there are good reasons for being so. (5) Self-interest is one reason, but another is respect for the human thought and effort that has gone into establishing such laws and traditions and transferring them from one historic period and one culture to another. This can be an attractive argument, even though it tends to suppress questioning of traditions and laws—a kind of questioning that is, I feel, the very touchstone of creative moral reasoning. It is interesting to note that most of us probably learned morality through being confronted with this argument, the religious argument, and the experiences surrounding them. Don’t we all remember being told we should or should not do something because it was or was not in our own self-interest, because God said it was right or wrong, or because it was the way we were supposed to act in our family, school, society, and world Self-interest is one reason, but another is respect for the human thought and effort that has gone into establishing such laws and traditions and transferring them from one historic period and one culture to another. This can be an attractive argument, even though it tends to suppress questioning of traditions and laws—a kind of questioning that is, I feel, the very touchstone of creative moral reasoning.
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The racial theory of civilization has ceased to be scientifically respectable. Today we only know it as a sophistical excuse for national pride and national hatred. The idea that there is a European race whose peculiar virtue render it fit to dominate the rest of the world, or an English race whose innate qualities make imperialism a duty, or a Nordic race whose predominance in America is the necessary condition of American greatness, and whose purity in Germany is indispensable to the purity of German culture, we know is scientifically baseless and politically disastrous. We know that physical anthropology and cultural anthropology are different studies, and we find it difficult to see how any one have confused them. Consequently we are not inclined to be grateful to Herder for having started so pernicious a doctrine.It would be possible to defend him by arguing that his theory of racial differences does not in itself give any ground for believing in the superiority of one race over another. One might argue that it only implies each type of man to have its own form of life, its own conception of happiness, and its own rhythm of historical development. On this showing, the social institutions and political forms of different peoples can differ without being intrinsically better or worse than one another, and the goodness of a certain political form is never an absolute goodness by only a goodness relative to the people that has created it.But this would not be a legitimate interpretation of Herder’s thought. It is essential to his whole point of view that the differences between the social and political institutions of different races are derived not from the historical experience of each race but from its innate psychological peculiarities, and this is fatal to a true understanding of history. The differentiations between different cultures which can be explained on these lines are not historical differentiations, like that between, say, Renaissance and Medieval cultures, but non-historical differentiations like that between a community of bees and a community of ants. Human nature has been divided up, but it is still human nature, still nature and not mind; and in terms of practical politics this means that the task of creating or improving a culture is assimilated to that of creating or improving a breed of domestic animals. Once Herder’s theory of race is accepted, there is no escaping the Nazi marriage laws.The problem which Herder bequeathed to his successors, therefore, was the problem of thinking out clearly the distinction between nature and man: nature as a process or sum of processes governed by laws which are blindly obeyed, man as a process or sum of processes governed (as Kant was to put it) not by law simply but by consciousness of law. It had to be shown that history is a process of this second type. that is to say, the life of man is an historical life because it is a mental and spiritual life.Herder’s first volume was published in the spring of 1784 when he was forty. Kant’s pupil had evidently read the book as soon as it appeared. Although Kant dissented from many of its doctrines, as his somewhat acid review was to show a year later, it did stimulate him to think for himself about the problems it raised and to write an essay of his own which constitutes his chief work on the philosophy of history. Kant was already sixty when he read the first part of the Ideen, and his mind had been formed by the Enlightenment as it took root in Germany under the aegis of Frederick the Great and of Voltaire, whom Frederick brought to the Prussian court. Hence Kant represents, as compared with Herder, a certain astringent tendency towards anti-Romanticism. In the true style of the Enlightenment, he regards past history as a spectacle of human irrationality and looks forward to a Utopia of rational life. What is really remarkable in him is the way in which he combines the Enlightenment point of view with the Romanticist, very much as in his theory of knowledge he combines rationalism and empiricism. The adjective "innate" (Line 3, Para. 3) is close in meaning to（）.
The decades after 1830 were a period of disintegration and uncertainty in German philosophy. For almost half a century idealist philosophies, culminating in Hegel’s grandiose system, had dominated the philosophical scene, revolving around such spiritual notions as transcendental ego, consciousness, presentation (Vorstellung ) , idea, mind, and spirit (Geist). The rapid collapse of German Idealism—that "gigantic mountain range" of creative thought, as Husserl called it in 1917, was due to a combination of causes.There was in the first place, accelerated progress in the natural sciences, ranging from physiology (Johannes Muller, Ernst Weber) to physics (Robert Mayer, Hermann Helmholtz) and chemistry (Justus von Liebig, Friedrich Wöhler). The success of the experimental approach visibly demonstrated the futility of all idealistic speculation about nature. Secondly, there was the rapid growth of technology (especially the construction of railways and the invention of the telegraph), combined with the process of industrialization (resulting in tensions between capital and labour which led to radical changes in the economic system). Moreover, new political ideas concerning popular participation in government led first of all to the abortive revolution of 1848 and resulted finally in the unification of Germany after the war of 1866.Next to philosophical idealism, the other great loser in this course of events was Christianity, especially protestant Christianity, a long-standing ally of idealism. The vacuum thus produced was often filled by vulgar materialist ideas along the line of Ludwig Buchner’s Kraft und Stoff (1855). The more educated classes, however, had needs of a more refined nature, and they turned instead to Schopenhauerianism. Schopenhauer stood firmly in the great European tradition of idealism extending from Plato and Kant, but he nevertheless resolutely rejected post-Kantian, and more specifically Hegelian idealism. Schopenhauer combined the scientist’s conviction of a blind causality reigning in the world of nature with a view according to which this world is none the less rooted in a subjective bestowal of sense. He combined the democratic feeling of compassion for all mankind with an elitist view on art, and a belief in the ultimate meaninglessness of history with an ontology in which the will is fundamental. But above all his philosophy, while rating Christianity rather low, made room for religion on better soil. the religion of India.The view of Indian thought current among educated circles in the second half of the nineteenth century in Germany was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer. Not only did he give popular currency to expressions such as "nirvana" and "the veil of maya", but also he may also be held responsible for the current amalgamation of all ideas which blew into Europe from the East. Neither Hinduism and Buddhism nor Brahmanism and Vedanta philosophy were clearly distinguished by Schopenhauer. On one point, however, he was particularly firm. Buddhism is the highest religion in the world, because it is an "atheistic religion" .Thus it not only surpasses Christian theism, but also comes close to Schopenhauer’s own conception of the absolute. Schopenhauer’s followers in Germany were therefore able to look down on the parochial Christian rituals practised in their country, while upholding the claim that they, too, were directed toward some higher entity however, vaguely conceived. Moreover, they could feel themselves close to the Vedas and Upanisads, considered to be the oldest and most venerable documents of human thought, while at the same time feeling superior to these Indian "myths" as a result of their own rootedness in the purely philosophical ideas of the Schopenhauerian system.To illustrate all this, I want to quote from a document which not only exemplifies this widespread attitude, but also deviates from it in a significant way. It will moreover display the typical framework of Husserl’s own understanding of Indian thought. The document in question is a letter written by Thomas Masaryk (1850—1937) in 1876, while Masaryk (who later was to rise to fame as the thunder and first president of the Czechoslovakian state) was still a student of philosophy. The letter is addressed to Franz Brentano who had been for some years Masaryk’s teacher at the University of Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was written from Leipzig in Germany where Masaryk moved in order to continue his studies. On 23 November 1876, he writes to Brentano.... From the passage, we can infer that Sehopenhauer （）.
The decades after 1830 were a period of disintegration and uncertainty in German philosophy. For almost half a century idealist philosophies, culminating in Hegel’s grandiose system, had dominated the philosophical scene, revolving around such spiritual notions as transcendental ego, consciousness, presentation (Vorstellung ) , idea, mind, and spirit (Geist). The rapid collapse of German Idealism—that "gigantic mountain range" of creative thought, as Husserl called it in 1917, was due to a combination of causes.There was in the first place, accelerated progress in the natural sciences, ranging from physiology (Johannes Muller, Ernst Weber) to physics (Robert Mayer, Hermann Helmholtz) and chemistry (Justus von Liebig, Friedrich Wöhler). The success of the experimental approach visibly demonstrated the futility of all idealistic speculation about nature. Secondly, there was the rapid growth of technology (especially the construction of railways and the invention of the telegraph), combined with the process of industrialization (resulting in tensions between capital and labour which led to radical changes in the economic system). Moreover, new political ideas concerning popular participation in government led first of all to the abortive revolution of 1848 and resulted finally in the unification of Germany after the war of 1866.Next to philosophical idealism, the other great loser in this course of events was Christianity, especially protestant Christianity, a long-standing ally of idealism. The vacuum thus produced was often filled by vulgar materialist ideas along the line of Ludwig Buchner’s Kraft und Stoff (1855). The more educated classes, however, had needs of a more refined nature, and they turned instead to Schopenhauerianism. Schopenhauer stood firmly in the great European tradition of idealism extending from Plato and Kant, but he nevertheless resolutely rejected post-Kantian, and more specifically Hegelian idealism. Schopenhauer combined the scientist’s conviction of a blind causality reigning in the world of nature with a view according to which this world is none the less rooted in a subjective bestowal of sense. He combined the democratic feeling of compassion for all mankind with an elitist view on art, and a belief in the ultimate meaninglessness of history with an ontology in which the will is fundamental. But above all his philosophy, while rating Christianity rather low, made room for religion on better soil. the religion of India.The view of Indian thought current among educated circles in the second half of the nineteenth century in Germany was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer. Not only did he give popular currency to expressions such as "nirvana" and "the veil of maya", but also he may also be held responsible for the current amalgamation of all ideas which blew into Europe from the East. Neither Hinduism and Buddhism nor Brahmanism and Vedanta philosophy were clearly distinguished by Schopenhauer. On one point, however, he was particularly firm. Buddhism is the highest religion in the world, because it is an "atheistic religion" .Thus it not only surpasses Christian theism, but also comes close to Schopenhauer’s own conception of the absolute. Schopenhauer’s followers in Germany were therefore able to look down on the parochial Christian rituals practised in their country, while upholding the claim that they, too, were directed toward some higher entity however, vaguely conceived. Moreover, they could feel themselves close to the Vedas and Upanisads, considered to be the oldest and most venerable documents of human thought, while at the same time feeling superior to these Indian "myths" as a result of their own rootedness in the purely philosophical ideas of the Schopenhauerian system.To illustrate all this, I want to quote from a document which not only exemplifies this widespread attitude, but also deviates from it in a significant way. It will moreover display the typical framework of Husserl’s own understanding of Indian thought. The document in question is a letter written by Thomas Masaryk (1850—1937) in 1876, while Masaryk (who later was to rise to fame as the thunder and first president of the Czechoslovakian state) was still a student of philosophy. The letter is addressed to Franz Brentano who had been for some years Masaryk’s teacher at the University of Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was written from Leipzig in Germany where Masaryk moved in order to continue his studies. On 23 November 1876, he writes to Brentano.... What can we infer about the writer’s feelings concerning Louis Buchner’s Kraft und Stoff (1855)（）.
在国际社会共同努力下，世界经济正在缓慢复苏，但复苏基础不牢固，进展不平衡，存在较大的不确定性。与此同时，本地区经济发展也面临一些难题和挑战，发达国家就业形势严峻，新兴市场国家面临资产价格泡沫和通货膨胀压力，最不发达国家处境艰难，各成员国经济结构调整任重道远。
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